I was diagnosed with TMJS 25 years ago by an Orthodontist. He told me that if I did not get it taken care of, it would destroy my body and possibly drive me crazy. I thought he was nuts, especially since I had never heard of it.

As I continue to read and research this disease, I believe that the Medical/Dental profession knew much more about it years ago than they know now. This fact was stated not long ago by a very well known Oral Surgeon who now lectures on the problems created by surgical intervention.

We all have trouble getting Doctors in any field to connect the symtoms. James Costen observed the whole picture with clarity in 1936. His description of the syndrome was: disturbed tmj function, lack of mobility, clicking, arthritis in the joint, joint, facial and neck pain, burning sensations in the nose, throat and tongue, ear problems such as, hearing loss, congestion, tinnitus, dizziness, eye pain and the list goes on. James Costen summarized the desciption of these symtoms as the sum of a neuralgia and a dysfunction. The TMJ is innervated by the auriculotemporal nerve branch of the trigeminal nerve. The auriculotemporal nerve is a very sensitive nerve to pain, thus when irritated it produces the abundant and strong symtoms the patient complains about. At that time it was called Costen's Syndrome.

Sometime during the 60's, modern medicine took over and changed the name to Temporal Mandibular Joint Syndrome and decided that the entire disorder was confined to the TM joint, caused by a bad bite. This led them to believe that if they fixed occlusional problems, the joint would be fixed. When that did not work, they decided to invade the joint and fix it. They know now that this very simple minded approach has been disasterous to those who were unfortunate enough to be in the experimental phase of trying to figure out what TMJD is. However, they will not admit to it and there are still very few who will connect all of the symtoms.

When I found this board a few months ago, I was almost
"crazy." I had just been told that there was absolutely nothing else that could be done for me. You that have read any of my posts, know that I am a surgical mess. In the last five years, I have developed all kinds of problems that no one would or could help me with. One thing that all of these Doctors agreed on was that none of these problems were related to my long term TMJD or the damage from multiple surgeries. When I read Marlene's Post of Symtoms, I could have jumped up & down. I had most of them and they were TMJD related. Since then, I have read everyone's posts, tried a different approach with researching this problem and found out so much that I did not know. I still have a lot of weird symtoms, but at least I know I am not going crazy (yet).

Everyone who posts on this board makes a great contribution, either with experience, knowledge, or by asking thought provoking questions.

In the last few weeks, I have run across some very interesting information that answers a lot of the current questions on the board. Some of it from other countries. I also have some of the problems that are being discussed.(I tried not to repeat any information, but I may have and I'm not trying to use a lot of big words, I just figured out that by identifying the muscles involved in TMJD and searching the medical names, you can find out a lot more than by just typing in TMJ and hitting search.)

Ear problems are very common with TMJS. It's due to the tensor veli palantini and the tensor tympani muscles connecting to the muscles of mastication and the ear. Grinding, clenching, chewing and talking causes these muscles to shorten and that puts a constant pull or pressure on the auricular cavity. This can cause ear pain, ache, fullness, congestion, tinnitus, hearing loss, etc.

Eye problems are caused by the zygomandibularis, which is a bursa of the tensor veli palatini and connects to the orbital bone below the eye. The sphenomandibularis originates at the sphenoid ( the base of the skull), connects to the mandible and then attaches to the boney structure behind the eye. These muscles are very small, but are involved in every facial movement and can cause severe eye pain.

This explains why we have ear and eye problems. All of these muscles are connected and are also served basically by the same nerves and blood supply. Anyone who has any degree of TMJ dysfunction can cause undue stress on these muscles just by eating and talking. Grinding and clenching really aggravates them. (By the way, modern medicine says that these two eye muscles are "New Discoveries". Costen mentions them in a paper he wrote in the 30's, he just called them something else.)

A report I read from a Swedish Univ. very simply says that with all of the muscles of mastication so very dependent on each other and the intricasy of the neural network, that anyone with TMJD would most likely suffer from some form of sinus cavity abnormality. In short, the neurotransmitters do not send the correct signals or the signals get blocked and the sinuses do not drain properly, so we have sinus problems and congestion.

My last report is a Spanish Study of 1000 people who suffer with TMJ symtoms. I tried to condense it a little. Here are the symtoms most often reported.

Pain: when chewing, opening mouth, yawning, talking, swallowing liquids or food,. Pain that wakes you up or interupts your sleep.

Location of pain: front of ear, temple area, inside ear, one or both joints, maxillary sinus, in and around mouth.

I know this is a little scattered, but it is an English interpretation of a report from Spain. (and it does mention some symtoms that I have not seen anywhere else)

I just thought I would share with everyone that ours is a worldwide problem. I know that some of the symtoms are duplicates of what we have seen, but some are expressed a little differently. All of this information is on the web for public view. I would not advise anyone to take any symtom for granted as being TMJD related without going to a Doctor. A lot of these symtoms could be something else. It just helps a little when you have exhausted all possibilities, that there is a reason for some of the weird symtoms we have.

I have a lot more info, but as you can see, it's too much to post. If you're interested and have not already searched some of these muscle or nerve(medical) names, you will be surprised with a whole new world of information about TMJD.

Thank you sooooo much for the information and for the work you put in to get it to us.You have helped so many peaple by posting this
i know that i could relate to so many of these symptoms and to think doctors dont often tell you that your problems could be your jaw.Wow thibk of that so many peaple have been misdiagnosed or sent away with nerve pills or told it was all in their ears only to read this and see that it could be their jaws what they are experiencing could be a physical thing after all
thank you for brightening my day and for giving me back hope
angel

Cymy Sue,
Do you know how much this post means for me? This is so great and of course give us all of your information- it is much appreciated!!!!!!
I think I will look under the actual names of the muscles to get more info also.
You are so awesome- thank you!!!!!
Heather

Sue,
Very informative post!!!
Out of all the different things I have had with TMJD, I have never had the ear fullness till the last year. My primary care doctor told me to try Clariton,(an allergy med) you can now buy over the counter. I can't believe it, but so far one ear has unplugged. Has only been two days so I am hoping the other one will do the same. I don't have any allergies that I know of but maybe it will do the trick!! I can't stand it when people are talking about me and I can't hear,LOL!!!
Your "sorority" sister,
Elaine

Cymy Sue,
Thanks for bumping up this post. I try to read as many old postings as I can, but sometimes miss some.
He has most of the symptoms mentioned. Through your post, I'm going to try to learn more about the smaller muscles of mastication, and widen my research, I think I've read most out there by simply typing in tmj, alot of it just says the same old thing. Thanks, Cymy Sue, that was very informative.
Cheryl

I'm glad this has helped. There are a lot of old posts, such as this one, made by many members that have so much information. I originally posted this in Jan. 03, but it was several pages back.

Hi Elaine,
Glad to see you posting again.
Kata, has asked me some questions that you are more quailified to answer. She asked on Carey's Disc Removal thread. She has a bad implant that needs to be removed.

Cymy Sue
Wow, as everyone else has stated "thank you". I have been complaining of some new symptoms the last few weeks - the buzzing and vibration in the ear (wind storm). Prior to this I had the fullness felling in my left ear - the vibration thing is terrible. I also have blurry vision in my left eye. It happened to be my good eye prior. Numbness from the nose down to the chin, tangy metal taste in my mouth. And have had others.

Very informative post.

I do want to apologize for my miss spells and blame it on my pain medication and just not feeling well. Sorry for that, but thank you for not complaining. I was on one board and some nasty man told me to get a spell checker, I was so mad and upset I blasted him and never went back to it. Everyone here is so nice and understanding and that just means so much.

CymySue
Please keep up the good work. You're correct about this being a world wide medical condition. There is a tremendous amount of research being done in Japan and Sweden and other countries. Go on the NICDR and NIH sites the govt. put out. Dr. Slavkin, now retired from NIH got several programs together trying to co-ordinate different medical protocals for TMD sufferors. He is now at UCAL at San Diego.
The most "influential" group from the 60's was the Pankey/Dawson philosophy of "functional occlusion". They believe (to this day) that if someone is put in "centric" occlusion, they can restore the bite and reduce if not "cure" TMD. In truth this works for some. But "centric" occlusion is still argued about within dental circles. Many people have more than one "point of rest" or more than one "occlusion". For those this method is far less successful. There are some links to the Univ. of Florida group (Dr. Mahan), but that group is more concerned with researching facial pain as a whole and is far less dogmatic.
Keep on researching. This group on this board is far from alone. There are other boards with people expressing the same symptoms, the same emotions and frustrations. There are people and Doctors that care, but it is difficult to find them sometimes. Persistence is the key. the more people know, the better it will be.